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I’m going to give ya’ll a recap of the IVF procedure last week and this weekend. I promise this blog won’t be all IVF all the time, just for time being.

Tim did an excellent job giving me the dreaded shot. In fact, I was standing there in anticipation when I finally said, “get on with it!” to which he responded, “I already did- you’re done.” Ha! I didn’t feel a thing. Tim was very proud of himself and even updated his facebook page with a cute (suggestive) post: “I have two things to do in this baby making process, and I did it so well, my wife said she didn’t feel a thing!” Charming.

Then we waited. Until Thursday. When we got to the hospital, we went back to the private OR recovery area where they went through the drill asking me all my medical history a couple of times. But everyone was really nice and were having fun- I could tell they were enjoying themselves. They hooked me up to the IV and I walked back into the OR. Oooo- such luxurious leg stirrups. None of those metal loopes with silly socks, no siree, these were the Lexus leg stirrups with padding and velcro that hugged my ankles all the way up past my knee. Fancy.

Stacy the anesthesiologist told me she was starting my drip and a few seconds later, the light fixture started to swirl. I think I said something like, “ooo- I’m getting woozy” before I was out. The best part of this experience was waking up from the “milk of amnesia” drip- I was so loopy that I said whatever was going through my mind at the time. What felt like 5 minutes of drunk Robin asking silly questions was actually a hilarious hour of me talking to anyone that would come near. Mostly, Tim was my target.

The first thing to come out of my mouth was, “I want bunnies.” Because doesn’t everyone want bunnies? This was followed by random comments like, “did I breath OK?” and “You [Tim] deserve a nice car so we need a garage” and “I really hope Barack Obama wins the next election” and “You are so beautiful [to whoever was standing close to me]”. Fun times.

Afterward wasn’t so fun, though. I couldn’t pee when I went to the bathroom, it hurt like a beast! The doctor had to catheterize me and out poured blood, a lot of blood. She went to go get the surgeon who told us things like, “have to keep you overnight,” and “we might have punctured your bladder”, but I was crying and didn’t hear any of this. All I was thinking was Why do all the rare bad things happen to me? In fact, I think I even told Tim that I was very mad at him for making me go through this and not pursuing adoption. So they pumped me full of IV fluids and gave me a pain reliever, and off to dream-land I went. When I woke up, I was thankfully able to pee on my own. It was still bloody, but that was OK. They said eventually that would clear up (which it did) and they sent me home. Phew!

But man, I wish I had done a little on-line searching about what to expect. I figured since they weren’t using gas to put me under, that it was not that big of a deal. And even though the doc was correct in saying the recovery would be nothing as bad as the laproscopic removal of my tube, this procedure gets a close second place due to its outstanding showing in the category: Man I feel like I have a hot-air balloon in my stomach and I’m about to pop. Seriously- the second night after the procedure, I was still so bloated that we talked briefly about going back to the ER- my belly was the size of a pregnant woman’s.

Apparently, when you pump your body full of progesterone, your bowels slow down and everything gets jammed up. (I didn’t visit the ‘outhouse’ for three days!) Then you poke your ovaries a couple of dozen times each, fill your gut up with blood and fluid, and things get a little, shall we say, bloated? So bloated, in fact, that I had to pee every 30 minutes. So bloated, that it hurt to take a deep breath. Heck- I wan’t even hungry for two days because my stomach was compressed. I had to ask Tim to not make me laugh because it hurt too much, and laying down was a lot more comfortable than sitting. Uck- I’m so glad that’s over with. (Sort of).

Day two (Saturday) after the procedure wasn’t much better than Friday. We visited a friend and their new dog, but I couldn’t stay too long- I was really sore and wore out so easily. I was just a bit worried that this wasn’t normal- and online web searched had me fearing the worst- Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation. So when we went in Sunday for the transfer, I made sure to describe my symptoms to the surgeon, to which he reassured me that these were normal. It was like having a two-ton weight taken off my shoulders, which is saying a lot to a woman carrying a hot-air balloon around in her stomach!

The transfer went very smoothly. I took a valium about 10 minutes before the procedure, but I was (mostly) aware of what was going on around me. Off the 10 eggs harvested, 7 were able to be fertilized. Of these 7, five were potentially viable for transfer. We decided on 2 to transfer, and the other 3 are in deep freeze.

First "Baby" picture

So these little munchkins are floating around in there, hopefully deciding that it’s a safe place to hang out for a while. The motivating factor for transferring two embryos is that in increases our chances of getting one baby. It also increases our chance of getting two babies. I really really want this to work, I don’t want to have to go through this again. In fact, I don’t know if I can go through this again. So even though we would prefer one healthy baby, we are willing to accept two if that’s the result of transferring two embryos.

So now we wait. Given our history with miscarriage, I will most likely not make any early announcements here on the blog- but don’t worry inner circle- you’ll find out sooner.